Casualslacks's Blah Blah Blog

It’s been two weeks since I played the first episode of Game of Thrones – A Telltale Games Series, an episodic game based on the world of the TV show. Episode 1 was released back in December 2014, Episode 2 on February 3. Much the same way that I listened to the audiobooks, reserving them for treats, I’m putting off playing Episode 2 for as long as I can so that I can savor it more when I finally do get to it. If you gathered from that statement that I liked it, you win.

Sigil of House Forrester

In fact, I really liked it. Similar to The Walking Dead Telltale adventure game, GoT is a personal crisis and decision making simulator. The game succeeds when it gets you to buy in to the reality that the choices you have to make are 1) meaningful to you and 2) consequential in the world of the game. In a typical RPG, I might save my progress and go left to see what’s in one direction. Then I’d reload using the old save to take a right turn instead to see what’s in that direction. Once I see which way is best, that’s the direction I take and save. Contrary to that practice, in GoT I owned my choices and took whatever consequences came. The characters in the game world responded to my consistency or lack thereof. Wondering what would have happened if I went left instead of right becomes part of how I feel about the character I’m playing and how the story is told. It adds to the role-playing that takes root in my imagination when I attempt to play my character in a way that makes the most sense for that character.

I’ve spoken with other players reluctant to get into Telltale adventures because they see behind the illusion of choice into the mechanics. They can’t buy into the reality of the game worlds and characters. They’re doing it wrong. They’re playing the game seeking the optimal paths through the story when the point is to win, but to get the most moving experience. That happens when you let the game get to you. Instead, they’re trying not to make the wrong choice that leads them away from the optimal story path. Perhaps the optimal story path is the one that most people pick or perhaps that’s the one where keep your favorite characters in your party and alive. Keeping on that optimal path involves seeing spoilers and save scumming. That’s self-sabotage! I understand the temptation and sometimes it may be driven by immersion, but don’t blame the game if you’re if you break your own immersion to “win.” The game is only at fault if it’s OBVIOUS that your participation irrelevant to character or story development. However, the most stunningly obvious moments in my experience with the Episode were when story elements, circumstances, and motivations began to shape themselves into a dangerous choice. The sense of tension I felt when knew I’d be asked to decide or act is was practically physical.

Young Lord Forrester

It’s the weight of those moments that have made this installment good. I don’t want to oversell it, but I did experience excitement.

A few more thoughts.

This Episode is told from the perspectives of members of a previously unmentioned minor noble house that remained loyal to the Starks all the way up to Robb’s very last wedding feast. Players meet the first character outside the hall of the Frey’s just before things get interesting. For better or worse, the game starts with multiple quick time events as the character fights and dodges his way to safety. This is the way the character is most often played. This was also the biggest negative point of my experience with the game. There were some action choices that I made early on that were merely due to my not realizing realizing that I had to control the game with arrow keys. The second playable character in Episode 1 is introduced unsympathetically from the perspective of the first character. Fortunately, once you’re driving him, you realize that is will be the character who will make decisions about how to rule his endangered lands. He’s really just a kid with a lot of new responsibilities. Telltale hasn’t force you to play as a brat. The final character is an attendant to Margaery Tyrell at King’s Landing. She is tasked with supporting her Northern family under the thumb of the Lannisters. She gets to tangle with Cersei and Tyrion. She is easily more likable than Sansa. As the Episode plays out, you see how each character’s actions play into the circumstances experienced by each other character. The ripples here cause great waves there.

Forrester Family Portrait

After a little warm up period, playing GoT was like controlling three people crossing an extremely precarious rope bridge. By the end of the episode, I was convinced that no step was safe. I felt like every good intention could be subverted and every lie might explode in my face. Best of all, as one should expect in a work derived from GRRM, tragedy was spontaneous.

/Casualslacks

The next episode will be from a different game. I don’t even know which one yet.

As an avid /r/gamedeals watcher, I’ve picked up a number of titles this year during various seasonally themed sales, holiday sales, bundles, and random check-out-my-online-store sales. While most of them have been standard fare RPGs, action games, shooters, and MMOs, I’ve also started picking up more games in the point-and-click adventure genre. I’ve actually got formidable selection at the moment:

Of course, my interest was piqued after playing Telltale’s The Walking Dead, which is one of the best games I’ve ever played. I imagine I’ll write a Cheap Review for it eventually, even though almost every dedicated gamer probably already played it a year ago. Also, Ragnar Tornquist’s Kickstarter for Dreamfall Chapters got my attention. Tornqist was one of the geniuses behind The Secret World and as such I’d follow him through metaphorical Hell (see Overlook Motel of Savage Coast, Maine). I had never heard of Dreamfall or The Longest Journey before and I was surprised to hear so many random internet voices hail them as their all-time favorite games. Thus, when I saw them for sale on GOG, I grabbed them. Soon after, other acquisitions followed.

I do not intend to do straight forward critiques of these games because God knows I haven’t worked up the writing chops to make it worth reading. However, I do want provide some impressions that my readers can reference when they’re considering buying these games or when they’ve played them and they’re settling their conclusions about their experience with the games. I may even edit and get some gameplay video up just to quickly deliver some thoughts that don’t require punctuation.

I don’t know exactly what to expect since before The Walking Dead the last adventure games I played were King’s Quest VI and Noctropolis. I’m hoping compelling stories, satisfying problem-solving, and simplicity. I’m going to start of with The Longest Journey and figure out where I should go from there. I’m still playing TSW, Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, Crysis, GTA IV,Mount & Blade Warband, and trying get myself into Star Trek Online and back to the Neverwinter Foundry; so clearly these adventure games aren’t the only games on my docket. Nevertheless, I’m going to install them and force them into my rotation.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I love Funcom’s The Secret World. I log in a few times a month and I always have a good time. TSW’s actually the game that put the freeze on my already rare blogging. I’ve played through several games since last summer, but I’ve been keeping up with TSW, watching and experiencing how it develops. I never took the time to do a Character Assessment or review about it until I learned that my unhealthy addiction to buying discounted games could be enhanced by writing reviews for the Green Man Gaming store. For every review, I can make 25¢ in store credit. Since I was already writing my thoughts about TSW on Reddit every time the game went on sale, I figured might as well cash in. Hence, Cheap Reviews.

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The Secret World probably won’t be the MMORPG that gets you hopelessly addicted. It is not a game that you will feel the need to spend every waking moment playing to the dejected frowns of your loved ones. Once you start, it’s not even a game in which you’ll feel like you’re behind everybody or that’ll you need to play 5 hours a day for a month to catch up. However, The Secret World is one of the most rewarding and entertaining experiences you’ll find in any MMORPG to date. It’s an amazing game that’s worth far more than the $30 they’re charging for all the 2012-developed content. Up to May 2013, there are two additional Issues (content packs) that players can purchase if so inclined, but they’re not required and there’s more than enough game already there to justify the cost.

Relatively safe

They want your blood

You’re going to die

TSW is a modern-day, three-faction MMORRG that’s a compelling combination of adventure, action, conspiracy, and horror themes. At a basic level, it’s a theme park action-RPG where you arrive at a hub, meet an NPC, and take on missions. However, TSW elevates the routine by making almost every quest a story-based chain. Consequently, players won’t grab 10 or 20 quests and “clear the zone.” Instead, players can take on a selection of story and side quests, rarely knowing where the missions will take them or what they’ll need to do when there. In addition to conventional kill-X-many-enemies quests, TSW also gives a variety of missions that tell players to get something done without telling them exactly how. Sometimes you’ll find clues in-game and sometimes you’ll have to use google (Just be sure to add “-tsw” if you don’t want spoilers). It’s up to you to discover the clues and how to progress through the story.

Go straight for 21 ft, then go straight at the corpse

The stories in TSW are the cornerstones of the game with the major arcs taking the player to present-day New England, Egypt, and Transylvania. The developers have quilted together folklore with ancient religions and urban myth. They’ve created characters who live in our world (some of them have real active Twitter accounts), but travel in circles full of magic. They are members of the secret organizations behind every major world event. A player’s own character progression gives them the power to reveal more of the tale. There are no levels, just weapon and gear ranks. Players can buy ranks and abilities for their weapons with experience. More experience is granted from quests than from farming mobs, eliminating the need for grinding. Players will need to decide on the fly if Swords and Machine Guns or Blood Magic and Pistols or Hand Claws and Elementalism will get them through their current mission or if they’ll need another weapon build altogether.

Yeah, bullets should do it.

7 Active, 7 Passive Abilities

Pick a killing tool

I’ve been playing The Secret World for about 10 months. I play it mostly solo while occasionally joining parties to achieve common goals and using my Cabal (guild) mostly for chat. I haven’t discussed dungeons (5-man instances), lairs (high-difficulty open-world zones), raids (large group instances), or PVP because I haven’t spent much time doing any of them. From what I see and hear in forums, podcasts, and reddit, multiplayer may be the game’s weakest point even though players can’t resist helping each other while we’re all out doing our own things. Combat also takes some getting used to, but once you match abilities that synergize optimally in your build, you’ll feel like a warrior god. Endgame is not a focus in this game and there’s no need to race to get there. There’s no urgency to get geared up to be a part of the 7% of players who see the game’s most challenging combat content. TSW has tons of combat, but also tons of unique stories waiting for all players. If you’re wanting to have the same experience that you’ve had in WoW, Guild Wars, or Tera, but in a contemporary, real world setting, TSW will disappoint you. If you want a unique, massively-multiplayer, combat-based, adventure RPG that you can take your time playing, you will not find a better game.

-casualslacks

It’s true, I’ve been playing since August and I’m nowhere close to reaching Panoptic Core. If you’ve got any comments or suggestions about TSW or my little blog place, let me know. I’d like to make this spot more useful to more people.

APB Reloaded: Only Their Love of Violence Rivaled Their Love for Each Other

In previous Character Assessments, I’ve mentioned perhaps two MMO’s that I believe to have implemented the best character creation tools that I’ve had the pleasure of using. The first, the super hero-fantasy from Cryptic, Champions Online, will be covered in a future post. For now, I turn my attention to the game that I initially thought would be my personal WoW-killer back in 2010, Real Time Worlds’ All Points Bulletin and GamersFirst’s APB: Reloaded. Bankruptcy and rebirth was the game’s fate. I didn’t do the beta or keep up with the forums pre-launch, but I watched the development of the game through RTW’s video podcast. Reasonably justified or not, I was convinced that the game would be solid. On launch day, I bought a box copy during my lunch break. That was June. By November, RTW was being liquidated and only a few guys were left in their offices to keep the servers up in hope that someone arrive to pony up the cash to pay their creditors.

Plenty has been said about the original release, most of it negative, ignorant nonsense. Fact is that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had high hopes that given a enough time, RTW’s attempt to bridge the gap between immersive MMORPGs and pure PVP shooters would flesh out into something huge. One very effective weapon in their arsenal that everybody who’s played APB can agree on is that the character creation tools and other customization options were amazing. Smartly, Gamersfirst did nothing to add or take away from the process and I have no expectation that they will attempt to improve on RTW’s foundation. Therefore, a review of the current games tools is a review of the old game’s tools. And in the tradition of these Character Assessment posts, that’s all I am going to review.

You’re Going to Kill Innocent Bystanders Either Way. Tons of them.

I considered recording my own video of the character creation process in APB just to demonstrate some of the elements in APB that most other games overlook, but making a video would be just one more excuse not to finish this post. [So here is some 3rd-party assistance A, P, B.] Anyway, a couple of the things that most character creations interface lack, but that APB includes, are camera control and animation freezing. Putting together a face in three dimensions is benefits greatly from having a full range of camera positioning all around the subject. While most games allow players to spin the character, APB also allows players greater freedom to choose the angle they want to work from.

A Mohawk Should Look Good From All Angles

Character models are animated during the creature process so that players can see something approximating what their character will look like in action. This is common in MMORPGs, but APB goes just a little bit further than the others by allowing players to freeze the model’s movements to better prevent surprise oversights once their character is finally in the game. These two features by themselves spoil other games for me. About the only thing that the suite lacks is light control.

When a player first gets into character creation, they may be underwhelmed because the suite opens up in Quick Mode once the player decides to be a criminal or an enforcer. In Quick Mode, players have a limited number of selections to make, but the random button produces an extremely wide range of results. Even though I love to jump right into crafting a character, I find it faster to randomize until I land on a configuration close to what I want before switching to Advanced Mode to refine it.

However, Advanced Mode is another animal. Thanks to APB, one of the tools that I always hope to see when I log into any MMORPG for the first time are sliders as opposed to numbers or other selectors for the attributes of my character. I don’t like picking from presets nearly as much as I prefer to use a slider to find the right setting between two extremes. Usually, sliders in character creators are just selectors. The SWTOR character creator, for example, has a mock-slider for all parts of the character build where the player must choose between specific options that can’t be modified. Instead, APB has sliders that allow players set their character’s features anywhere within a range. Obviously, things like hairstyles have mock-sliders. However the various lengths for front, back, and side portions of the hair will have real sliders for length and tilt. It is hard to put in to words just how awesome it get a feature exactly in the sweet spot you’re going for because the game tools allow you to take control. [Here’s another video!]

The APB character creator even improves upon the basic slider, which only goes up-to-down, left-to-right. The game has what I’ll call a slider map that allows the player to move up-to-down and left-to-right at the same time. For example, skin tone is on a normal left-to-right slider moving from very pale to very dark. Meanwhile, skin pigment uses a slider map with the top right extreme being a reddish hue and the bottom left being somewhat green. The top-left is extreme is neither reddish nor greenish and the bottom right being very greenish and very reddish at a the same time. As the player moves the cursor through out that map, their character will immediately take whatever attribute is assigned to that motion. It a tool I have seen in no other game.

The number of options might seem overwhelming. That is because APB comes closer than any other game, RPG or otherwise, to being able to duplicate a photograph in 3-D gamespace giving the player that sense of ownership over their unique creation. [I’m eager to try out Skyrim considering how good Oblivion’s character creator is.] While APB comes closest, it doesn’t make it all the way there for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, the lighting during character creation is nothing like the lighting anywhere else in the game. Until a players get acquainted with the tools and practices trial and error, the faces that they work so hard on may turn out monstrous in-game. There is no way to save configurations, so if a player decides delete their misbegotten horror with the intent of starting over, they will have to start from scratch. Alternately, players can modify their character’s appearance at any time for in-game currency in the Social District.

Dynamic Lighting F$#%@ Everything Up

Additionally, body types are limited to height, weight, and muscularity. Male characters can be very muscular and very fat. Female characters can be kind of muscular or just little out of shape[– sexism]! No characters will be noticeably shorter or taller than any others. Only some hairstyles may be modified and none to the point where the changes will be distinct from another player with the same hairstyle. Despite the number of available hairstyles, there should be even more because I suspect that half the hairstyles will never be used by anybody. Finally, not every configurable attribute can be modified independently. For example, modifying one Lip or Eye attribute modifies 3 or 4 others, which can be somewhat frustrating. Giving the game engine less variety to render is understandable as my GPU certainly gets hot playing APB. However, these design choices compromise the control that the developers tried to hand over to players in other aspects.

Be that as it may, once I have become happy with of any my APB characters’ appearances over the couple of years, I grew pretty attached to them. The look of a character is constantly evolving in APB because of clothes that can be unlocked and designs which the players can create add to clothes or use as tattoos. Many players join clans and share designs to create uniforms. Part of the roleplay of the game is that criminals and enforcers in San Paro are aspiring celebrities so building a brand is implicitly encouraged. Really successful players will see statues with their image go up in the Social District. Clans will see their logos on billboards there as well. That said, the fate of most “successful” players in APB (win streakers) is to be killed by 6 other players when the server flags them as high threat.

FYI: There Ain’t No Zoom In This Game

I’ve a had a strange relationship with APB in the time that I’ve spent following the development, playing the original game until the servers were shut down, checking in on GamersFirst, and finally playing the revamped game. My opinion of the original release was enthusiastically positive and I was a dedicated player. My opinion of the current version is generally negative because the game now promotes few incentives for players to use the creativity tools included with the game and there is a greater focus on the cash shop. It’s telling that most of the videos on Youtube for this game were created Summer 2011. I believe that the game has become less well-rounded and less ambitious. Although, I don’t know how to reset my expectations from the original game and give Reloaded a fair shot.

But I digress; this is a review of APB and APB: Reloaded character creator only. Since it is one of the deepest systems I’ve ever used, it merits high marks.

Character Assessment Grade: A

You can certainly have fun in this game too, but you needs some make it interesting. There are sandbox aspects to the game that are easy to disregard, but the guys in this video aren’t missing out:

The best discounts I’ve seen today have been the big Pack deals that generally go for $50 and includes 4 to 20 games. The 2k Collection is small, but includes a $45 game that was just released 3 weeks ago (Spec Ops: The Line) as well as 6 other hits from this year (Darkness II) back to 2009 (Borderlands). The THQ Collection includes 14 games without a single one that goes for less than $10 normally. I also already own Darksiders and Space Marine, so the set loses a little value. The only game left that I was craving, Saint’s Row: The Third, will be on sale for $12.50 until 2:30am cst (7/13/12). So, yeah, I own that now.

There’s a whole lot of temptation in this candy store. I think tomorrow’s payday as well. Yet, I will try keep my purchases limited to items on my wishlist. The Bethesda Collection has 3 games (Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, Brink) on my list that I could check off in quick fashion if I only let my wild lust for game acquisition wash over me. Perhaps Steam sales are a game all by themselves and I’m really lucky that the difficulty level is easy. With the exception of the Flash Deals and Community Choices, I don’t have stay up late or get up early to catch something that I might miss. I don’t have to worry that the initial discount on a $59 game is not the deepest discount that’ll be offered and that I’ll be screwed by waiting. All the initial deals are good for the duration of the sale ending on 7/23/12; so I can just wait until the end.

Games I want to see severely discounted from my wishlist (that I haven’t mentioned yet):

Fallen Earth was first released in 2009. Originally a subscription-based game from Reloaded Productions, but is now managed as free-to-play by GamerFirst. It is a first- or third-person MMORPG in which a variety of firearms are you primary weapons. It brings to mind Borderlands and Fallout, but as one might expect from an MMO, not as visually-appealing as either. I tried this game out because I like shooting people. I thought I would also like shooting them while leveling up a character. Instead, I have been playing a lot more Blacklight: Retribution because that game is fast, furious, and fun. Nevertheless and as usual, I am not going to review Fallen Earth gameplay, only the game’s character creation tools.

Here we have another game where the developers either lack the resources or the desire to allow the player control over how their character’s bodies look. Granted, this game gives the player more options concerning faces than Star War: The Old Republic, a triple-A pay-to-play game, but that is not saying much. It would be one thing if the bodies in the game were reasonably interesting to look at as they are in SW:TOR, but they are not. The initial clothing lineup, as should be expected, is a choice between short, long, and no-sleeve nondescript tops of three colors, straight-leg blue jeans, and a selection of low-profile sneakers.

Where He’s Going, Only The Faces Need to Be Camoflagued

Configuring a face involves picking one out of a line-up. That is not awesome. Playing with presets is about as fun as drawing over comic books with a set of color pencils. Below is a rundown of the options.

25 faces

3 complexions

15 skin tones

4 ages

12 eye colors

26 hair styles

34 piercings

5 facial hair (male)

5 lip sticks (female)

5 eye shadows (female)

8 sneakers

4 leg tatoos

8 arm tatoos

4 body piercings

16 shirts

45 face tatoos

25 face paints

Objectively (and sarcastically) I could says that there are so many combinations, the choices stagger the imagination. Practically, there is probably enough variety in the preset faces to have at least one to suit every player. Thus, it is incredibly fortunate that players only get one character slot for free. It all works out.

Score One Point For Including An “Urban” Hairstyle That is Neither Dreadlock Nor Afro

Once a player picks a preset face, skin tone, and complexion, all the rest of character creation is accessorizing. Piercings, tattoos, and crazy hair do little to interest me in real life and they do so little to differentiate player characters in MMOs that having the options bore me. Devs, until there is impact on the player character’s silhouette in your character creator, please do not bother me with nose studs. I will probably have a mask, helmet, or some other gear on when I run into other players and I will only see my character from behind most of the time I play.

I included the above video just to point out that here is a group of guys having a good time, but one cannot be told from the other except their dance moves. That wouldn’t be okay even if Fallen Earth were a single-player RPG, like Elder’s Scrolls. In an Elder’s Scrolls game, the player is developing a character of distinction and renown. Those games all begin with the player defining who their character is in terms of stats and appearance. The emphasis in Fallen Earth seems to be to get the players into the game quickly without giving a second thought about who each character will be among the thousands the producers hope log on. There are no classes in Fallen Earth. There are no combat roles, but there is an AP point distribution system where the player can put together their build which affected how well they can do what they do. But I don’t really want to do anything because I haven’t created a character that I really want to play.

Character Assessment Grade: D

Ain’t No Dang Crows Gonna Get At This Corn. Not On My Watch.

In CA#3, I gave Global Agenda a B. These two games have a some elements in common being MMORPG shooters. I wonder how much playing the game affected my view of the character creator. Firstly, Global Agenda has a far superior character creator where the preset faces serve as a launchpad into a deeper system. If I had time to play it, I would find that I like gameplay in Fallen Earth more because of the optional FPS-style interface and effects (there are bullets, not lasers, and recoil). Instead, the lazily implemented character creator and barely interesting tutorial turned me off from the get-go. Global Agenda gives a much better first impression while Fallen Earth was apparently snacking on cloves of garlic before our date.

The RepopulationKickstarter is three days away from completion. Contributors blew away Above and Beyond Technologies original $25K goal by the middle of the campaign, but backing has slowed down since then. From all indications, there’s no doubt that this sandbox, sci-fi MMORPG will go live some time in the next year. It is only a matter of how much more ambitious the initial offering can be at launch. Looking over their stretch goals, I see they want to improve character customization (little things, but huge to me), enhanced gameplay and UI options, and a whole new zone. The team behind the game needs to cash do it all and polish the hell out of it. Looking at their very first alpha-build trailer, I’d say they’re on their way: